Infections are transmitted by different types of “germs,” including bacteria and viruses.
Some germs can cause asymptomatic infection, which means that the person can have the ‘germ’ in their body, but they don’t have any symptoms of the disease or they have very mild symptoms and don’t really feel sick, according to the Division of Infectious Diseases at UAMS. And if the particular “germ” can be transmitted by coughing or sneezing, for example, then the person may transmit the infection to someone else without knowing it and without having any symptoms themselves.
Other types of infections make everyone who gets exposed become symptomatic, in other words. to feel sick. Some of these can also be transmitted from person to person. As for viruses that cause colds, people can, in fact, transmit these viruses with mild or minimal symptoms themselves. In this case, they’re considered asymptomatic carriers. They usually don’t have the virus in their system for a prolonged period of time, though.
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